


I told it not

by Serpensortia_parapluie



Category: Naruto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 14:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15121169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serpensortia_parapluie/pseuds/Serpensortia_parapluie
Summary: Death, eternal and endless, comes nipping at his heels, and Orochimaruruns.





	I told it not

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from _the poison tree_ by William Blake, because I felt it fit this Orochimaru and also because I like the implication that he's his own worst enemy.  
>  Fun facts are going up here this time, because #aesthetics. Fun fact the first, I am juST BARELY making my 'minimum one post a month' deadline, so there's that.  
> Fact the second, this was actually inspired by the lyric 'death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit' from _heavydirtysoul_ by twenty one pilots and the quote in the end notes that I found on tumblr, both of which gave me both major Orochimaru and Tony Stark feels. Orochimaru won out and got written first. This is just a fun little exploration of Orochimaru's character.  
>  Also, happy Pride!  
> I do not own, nor am I affiliated with the owners of Naruto, and I do not give my permission for my work to be shared on sites like Goodreads. Comments are appreciated, and can help my writing improve.

He doesn't remember when he started running scared.

(That's a lie. He doesn't like admitting he's frightened, or remembering why. But he knows. He remembers.)

His parents weren't with him very long, but while they were, he loved them, over and beyond all others, all else. His mother's casual and effortless measured lethal grace, his father's calm and calculated words that lay cleverly hidden traps in every conversation. He misses them so much it aches. Every day, he can't go more than ten minutes before remembering again that they are gone, and he'll never see them again.

Every glimpse of his own dark hair from the corner of his eyes reminds him of the long silken sheet of his father's. Every time he speaks, he hears a childish version of his mother's voice. He'll never help his father pin up his long hair again, never hear his mother speak. They are gone from him, and the hole they left cradled by his ribs _aches_.

He feels like ever since he's always been on the edge of flight, feet posed to move, heart thumping slightly too fast, eyes a little too wild to convincingly cover desperation. He wants to get away, leave that aching hollow swaddled by his ribcage behind.

He's always ready to _run_.

No one ever calls him on it, his readiness to flee. He's oddly thankful.

(His prepared excuse, that he's strategically relocating to a more advantageous position, has always seemed rather see-through and desperate sounding in his head. He dreads hearing how thin an excuse it sounds in the air. He worries his voice might crack, and then the others will know how frightened he is, and that's not to be tolerated. This constant urge to flee is a weakness others would take ruthless advantage of, he knows. He would in a heartbeat. He makes sure they don't know.)

He has a team now, and he supposes that he should call them his friends by now as well. If only because they’ve known each other for so long and sheer proximity. They're not his family though, they cannot replace his mother and his father and he knows they never will.

Shoring up defenses against the tightness in his chest, the rabbiting of his pulse, and the dryness of his mouth helps but little. Shuriken and kunai and tanto and katana, jutsu after jutsu in every element, taijutsu, even that esoteric art of sealing- they are but brief and paper-thin shields against the sinking hole he hides deep inside that prompts him ever further, ever faster.

(Time heals all wounds, he’s heard it said. This grasping void in the center of him never goes away or grows smaller, no matter how long he waits. Instead, bit by bit, it is reaching out dark, enveloping tendrils and devouring his every thought, word, and motion- this hole is bottomless, and it is _hungry_ and he refuses to be consumed by it.

His determination doesn’t matter. Still it grows.)

Sensei praises him for his dedication, his genius, how quickly he grasps everything he sets out to teach.

It's not enough.

He thought once that he might be able to put his team in that cold and empty spot his parents left him, or friends, or sensei. But time passed, as it does, and he learned how foolish he was to hope he could trust others to fill the gaping space inside him.

The man he could have called brother abandoned him. Turned his back on their bond forged in war, blood and lives shared, for brats better left for dead.

(That came back to bite them in the end, didn’t it? He knew they should have left them to die.)

The girl he almost called sister lost herself to her own grief and fled, forgetting him along the way.

Both of them ran, and left him behind.

And Sensei? He needed him, needed him to notice, to save him from the growing shadow in the roots of the great tree of Konoha- but sensei was blind, perhaps willingly so, and so he was lost.

For the first time, he gave in to that urge constantly thrumming through him, and he ran. He began to wonder if perhaps the void was locked to his flesh, and if there was another way he could escape.

It worked the first time, for a while. The hair in this body was shorter, and much lighter than his own had ever been.

(He flinched whenever he caught a glimpse of it, and he avoided speaking, lest he hear the voice this body had given him, rough as sandpaper and nothing like mother’s.)

He was free and relieved, for a time. Then he could no longer stand having even those small reminders of his mother and father torn away, and he returned to his own flesh and bone.

The next time didn’t work as well, and the one after worked even less.

He kept trying. He couldn't bring himself to stop, but he did allow himself to lie about the reason why.

He gathered up the lost and scared, made a little village of his own. Perhaps if they were beholden to him, he would not be left behind. Still the fear persisted, only now he must hide it more than ever- he is in charge, he is the leader, and the leader is not allowed to show fear.

He gathers himself a student, an apprentice, and he puts off putting on the boy’s flesh. He tells himself that the boy still too young, too focused on his revenge, not strong enough to contain his chakra reserves- he tells himself a lot of things, and he holds off for another day.

He can always take the boy’s flesh for his own tomorrow.

(What he doesn’t tell himself is this:

The boy reminds him of himself, and yet not. This boy’s got a hole inside of him as well, and it is on the cusp of consuming him whole. Nothing could fill it, not village, not friends, not teammates, not sensei.

Difference is, this boy is running _towards_ his fate.)

Death, eternal and endless, comes nipping at his heels, and Orochimaru _runs_.

**Author's Note:**

> “Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red.” - Kait Rokowski
> 
>  
> 
> Come visit me at [tumblr](https://serpensortia-parapluie.tumblr.com)!


End file.
